Mr. Trudeau, shut up

That's it. Garry Trudeau is an idiot again. Last week, he was on fire when he nailed the hair trigger, anything-for-an-excuse White House eager to bomb Iraq based on the results from U.N. inspections (in the Doonesburyverse, it was some suspicious yogurt setting off a Geiger counter). But, this week, like weather in Seattle or the amour of a fickle lover, it all changed.

A few weeks ago, it was the blog that got the creator of "Doonesbury" all in a bunch.



This time, it's the "lack of campus activity" against Team Bush's Wannabe War. Today was only the first installment, but I think I get the picture. Instead of being all out in force against the war, tangling with cops and staging sit-ins and burning draft cards (maybe like how Mr. Trudeau may have fancied himself during the heady Vietnam days), the Bill and Ted-like slackers portrayed in this week's strip will worry more about Playstation 2 or going to a party. Anything, maybe even grades, instead of the thought of their asses being on the front line in some corporate pseudo-war that smells like the heady aroma of unleaded gas.



Hey, Garry, I understand that you're big and famous and all that, especially with your own Ben and Jerry's flavor and all, but I got some news for you. It's all about the mainstream this time around.

If it may please the court, I present exhibit A. (sorry, it's subscriber-only, but I'll give you the opening graphs)

For months, Americans opposed to Bush's belligerent unilateralism toward Iraq but uncomfortable with the radical sectarians leading many antiwar marches have felt excluded. Sure, some mainstream opponents to an Iraqi war have been able to overlook the dubious politics of early antiwar organizers Not In Our Name and the ANSWER coalition, groups tied, respectively, to the Shining Path-supporting Revolutionary Communist Party and the Kim Jong Il-loving Workers World Party.

But others have felt nearly as alienated by their warmed-over lefty rhetoric as they have by Bush's bellicosity. As George Packer wrote in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday, "If you're a liberal ... why is there no anti-war movement that you'd want to join?"

One might have finally appeared Wednesday, when many of the pillars of progressive politics in America announced they were banding together to oppose a preemptive, unilateral war on Iraq. The Win Without War coalition includes the National Council of Churches, NOW, NAACP, the Sierra Club, MoveOn, Working Assets, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Physicians for Social Responsibly and Veterans for Common Sense. Taken together, these groups represent a vast swath of America -- the National Council of Churches alone indirectly represents 50 million congregants -- and they aim to channel their millions of members into antiwar activism.


Second, Garry, I remember being in the protests for the first Gulf War way back in 1990 (in the midst of a crappy economy and a president named Bush) and college students too did mobilize before the war began. And this time around, there have been protests. Think about the 100,000+ who protested a war yet to begin a couple months ago, a war that hasn't (luckily) killed Americans or Iraqis. Just imagine when the shooting starts.

Or just imagine the feet hitting the pavement if the d-word is uttered seriously.

But, let's go back to the campus got a moment. According to Mr. Trudeau, there aren't any kids taking the war footing seriously. Nope, certainly not in Michigan. Or in Iowa.

Not convincing? How about the stock that's just about ready to tread on the grassy knolls of State U or gaze upon the verdant tendrils of the University of Ivy League? Maybe they're a bunch of slackers, too. Er, wait. Nope.

Damnit, Garry, look around. It ain't Vietnam; it's a new dynamic. It's not how it was 10 years ago either during the first shooting match in the Gulf. Thanks to the Web, people can log in and find out when and where to march and chant and get their democracy on. Campuses aren't the battlefield. Instead, it's a guerilla war of protests sprouting up everywhere full of people of all different races, ages, and walks of life who haven't bought Team Bush's Iraq Shiny Go-Go train set for Christmas. Maybe there isn't any campus activity yet about Iraq (which is flat wrong, see above), but there's been a lot of work on campuses regarding sweatshops (student groups are part of this site, too). There's a lot of heat and passion on campuses, and it ain't all in the dorms after a kegger. No, there are some students working to make a change, building networks, reading up and getting active.

Garry, I usually like what you do, and I'll even admit that the stories about the people in the links I posted don’t mean to label everyone ages 18-23 as strident activists, but you are flat wrong this time. College kids, true numbers unknown, are out there protesting and thinking up other ways of getting their voices heard by a media market owned by a precious few monied interests.

Cartoonists like Trudeau often draw their strips a couple weeks in advance so I don't yet know how this week's installment will turn out. I would be pleasantly surprised if one of the students is convinced to stop being apathetic and begins to study up about Iraq, Team Bush and goes from a know-nothing to a campus activist, later to make a metamorphosis into a national rally figure. Trudeau could use the student as a figure of giving a damn in a please-me-please nation cocooned by MTV, Sprite, The Gap and Internet porn. It would help Trudeau get back some of his rage and youth from the Vietnam days and would make for a great storyline that he could duck and weave throughout his strip.

But, like the cartoons about the blog, I think this will be a one-week tap dance decorated with cheap shots and missing the bigger points and the less-than-sexy facts. Call me pragmatic.


Lost time

Friday, I got my life back. Friday night, I beat "Jedi Outcast" for the Gamecube (in a ridiculously easy final boss battle) and I caught the final episode of the "Taken" 10-day miniseries on the Sci-Fi channel.

Long story short: The Sci-Fi people owe me 20 hours of my life back.

Granted, the first couple episodes were great, the writing was mostly pretty sharp, episodes 8 and 9 (out of 10) were taut humdingers, and it's plenty ambitious to try a two-week miniseries encompassing some iffy subject matter like alien abductions spanning 50 years of American history, but...sheesh...the big secret of the alien abductions was so the aliens could learn about our emotions and be more like us? I mean, I may have a short attention span, but I swear this was the plot of the uber-cool "Dark City."

Second, the last episode ended with Allie, a just-precious little alien/human girl, taken by the aliens after they tinkered with numerous humans to generate a bloodline to meld both races safely. Allie was going to be a kind of conduit between worlds, a person that could speak to humans and aliens about co-mingling and maybe, eventually, foster some kind of union between us and them.

Um, great, but we never got to see that happen and you'd think a civilization that mastered interstellar travel would have either a) figured out it would be more humane to not zap the lesser species and actually, you know, try to talk to them or b) figure out a way to abduct us without us knowing it.

Well, the aliens took Allie, who looked a bit afraid after the civilian mob (protecting her) and the Army (who came to get her) were whaling the tar out of each other. Meanwhile mom and dad (also abductees and both human, mostly...trust me, it's a long story) were left behind, holding each other on the grass. The Army packs up and heads home, disheartened after losing their quarry.

But no one on the Army side gets it into their heads that, hey, mom and dad are still here. Let's...um...get them to breed and pop out another hybrid or something.

My wife picked out that there were way too many invitations to a sequel just stitting there, but will we want to sit through another 20 hours to try to get to a resolution? I mean, Peter Jackson is about to summon the world back for another three-hour-plus tromp through Middle-earth, and his epic trilogy will total, oh, let's say 13 hours when the super-special neato-keeno DVD master set comes out in late 2004. And frankly, I'm sure it'll be 13 hours of quality screen time.

After each episode of "Taken," I muttered far too loudly that, if you gave me some top-notch video editing software and a tricked-out Mac, I could chop the entire "Taken" epoch to about 12 hours, 14 tops.

Of course, that wouldn't be me just wishing out loud for a spiffy new computer. Nope, no sir-ree, bob.

Ohhhh, I just got a very evil idea. More later.

P.S. A grateful tip of the hat to this message board at Salon.com for some of the links in the protest section of this post.

P.P.S. I know I'm late on this, but Gore isn't running in 2004. Good. But it has to suck for these people.